Take a few minutes and read the following article by Guskey & Jung. The article was written in response to grading special education students but I believe there is some pertinent information on grading for all students.
I would really appreciate your thoughts on this-- should we separate our report card from academic and "citizenship"?
“Teachers at all levels of education today struggle in their efforts to assign fair, accurate, and meaningful grades to students with special needs,” write Thomas Guskey and Lee Ann Jung in this helpful article in Theory Into Practice. A perennial problem is mushing together three things: students’ achievement with respect to standards, students’ effort, and students’ progress. “An A, for example,” say Guskey and Jung, “may mean that the student knew what the teacher expected before instruction began (product), did not learn as well as expected but tried very hard (process), or simply made significant improvement (progress).” Teachers often combine these three criteria in an attempt to be fair and allow for individual differences, but such grades are confusing to students and parents. To solve this problem, say the authors, we first need to develop a better grading and reporting system for all students that separately reports three ways of measuring learning: - Product criteria – what students need to know and be able to do as measured by final exams, reports, projects, exhibitions, portfolios, or other assessments; - Process criteria – what students did to reach their current level of achievement, including effort, behavior, punctuality with assignments, and work habits; - Progress criteria – the value-added from the learning experience, or how far students have come (versus where they are). Guskey and Jung report that when these three components are separated out, teachers find it easier to grade students, students take homework, effort, and other work habits more seriously, and parents have a better idea of what’s going well and what needs work. It’s especially helpful for students with special needs, since everyone has a clear sense of each student’s status with respect to standards, progress, and effort.
Take a few minutes and read the following article by Guskey & Jung. The article was written in response to grading special education students but I believe there is some pertinent information on grading for all students.
I would really appreciate your thoughts on this-- should we separate our report card from academic and "citizenship"?
“Teachers at all levels of education today struggle in their efforts to assign fair, accurate, and meaningful grades to students with special needs,” write Thomas Guskey and Lee Ann Jung in this helpful article in Theory Into Practice. A perennial problem is mushing together three things: students’ achievement with respect to standards, students’ effort, and students’ progress. “An A, for example,” say Guskey and Jung, “may mean that the student knew what the teacher expected before instruction began (product), did not learn as well as expected but tried very hard (process), or simply made significant improvement (progress).” Teachers often combine these three criteria in an attempt to be fair and allow for individual differences, but such grades are confusing to students and parents.
To solve this problem, say the authors, we first need to develop a better grading and reporting system for all students that separately reports three ways of measuring learning:
- Product criteria – what students need to know and be able to do as measured by final exams, reports, projects, exhibitions, portfolios, or other assessments;
- Process criteria – what students did to reach their current level of achievement, including effort, behavior, punctuality with assignments, and work habits;
- Progress criteria – the value-added from the learning experience, or how far students have come (versus where they are).
Guskey and Jung report that when these three components are separated out, teachers find it easier to grade students, students take homework, effort, and other work habits more seriously, and parents have a better idea of what’s going well and what needs work. It’s especially helpful for students with special needs, since everyone has a clear sense of each student’s status with respect to standards, progress, and effort.